Oregon’s U.S. senators usually vote the same way (like for continuing the government shutdown until healthcare costs are addressed).
But a key exception in recent months was Sen. Ron Wyden’s support for continued arms sales to Israel while Sen. Jeff Merkley voted to oppose them.
Wyden’s support came up again last weekend — at a Portland Book Festival event featuring Omar Al Ekkad, author of “One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This” (a title you may recognize as “the one book every Portlander should read right now”).
City Cast Portland podcast host Claudia Meza, who attended that event, had a chance to put some related questions to the senator, on a day when the Senate was taking key votes related to ending the shutdown.
Your name came up in a very heated discussion. People wanted to know why you chose to keep arming Israel.
“ Well, first of all, this for me is such a heartbreaking issue and debate because I'm a first-generation [American] Jew. My parents fled the Nazis in the ’30s. Not all got out. We lost family during Kristallnacht and in Theresienstadt, and I like to believe that I feel so strongly about humanitarian principles.
“[And] what I'm trying to do is step up the food assistance to Gaza, where the suffering has been so great and to constantly use my position — I'm the ranking Democrat on the intelligence committee as well, so I have a chance to speak out about foreign affairs — to say, look, we have to prime the foundation of a two-state solution.
“ Now, easier said than done, and I'll close with what the challenge has been and why it's so heartbreaking. At my last town meeting in East County, a gentleman got up at the end and looked at me and said, ‘No, Israel should not exist.’ …The reason I'm alive today is because of the courage of my mother. My mother was dealing with the Nazis, and everybody said Hitler wasn't a big deal, and she got everybody out in time.”
I understand this is a deeply personal issue that's connected to your traumatic history — to your very existence. But I still have to ask, what does that have to do with sending $20 billion of weapons?
“ I certainly have profound differences with Donald Trump on so many issues, but if there's a real ceasefire, then there is a chance to move ahead, get food aid to Gaza, which I've been for, and start laying the foundation of a two-state solution. But it's not helped when people say, ‘No Israel, no existence.’ And certainly, when people say it, it strikes right at the heart of what my mom did. I feel so strongly about this; there cannot be peace in the region with [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu leading in Israel. And many, many feel that way as well. And this is something that I think we can come together on.”
So why arm him?
“I'm gonna have to go 'cause we got a vote coming up.”
To be continued: Wyden, who promised to come back to the issue in the future, also spoke to City Cast Portland on the government shutdown vote and more. Listen to the full interview here.
